RELAX . RELATE. RELEASE

Written By: Emmanuella "Manny" Williams

After 4 years of running at an "All Out" pace, my husband and I have finally decided to take a 5 day vacation to take break from it all. That's right a vacation without the kids (gasp). As I packed I found myself panicking about the vacation and all of the work that I would come back to next weekend.... would the kids eat their vegetables, will they fight, with they give my mother-in-law a hard time, would I be able to get all of my work done and of course...will the Buckeyes and the Gators win on Saturday. All things that I obviously have no control over but drove myself crazy thinking about them. Finally, Nathan (my son) came up to me and said Mommy I hope that you have a good time on your trip and have fun. This made me think of the episode where Whitley Gilbert was trying to learn how to Relax, Relate and Release. I realized that although this was meant to be funny, it was a great message that I needed to try to adopt. Starting with this vacation, I plan to:

RELAX: Nothing....Absolutely Nothing, is THAT serious. As I scrolled through my Facebook friends list the other day, I realized that this year alone I have lost many friends and family members. People that I thought would live forever. Many of which were friends that were my age that just died suddenly. If I knew that tomorrow would be my last day... would I stay mad at that person, stress about that last email or think about that one thing that I just can't fix... No! I would have fun... tell my family that I loved them, laugh as loud as I could and just Relax.

RELATE: Confession - last week, my husband called me out and said.... put your phone down and talk to me. I started to argue with him until I realized that I had spent an hour scrolling and now had no time left to spend with the kids before bed. Time spent, liking and writing back LOL to things that I really didn't think was that funny. I still need healing in this space (y'all pray for me saints)... but going forward, I want to put the phone down and enjoy the people that are with me. I am going to stop rushing my babies to eat their food and get to bed so that I can log back on to my laptop and work some more. I am going to make time to see friends and make relationships a bit more real than Facebook, Instagram and text messages. We are here to Relate... so I plan to start.

RELEASE:LET IT GO... LET IT GO!!!As a closet control freak, this one scares me the most. I will probably spend the entire 2017 trying to get this right. I constantly have to remind myself... "Be still and know that he is God". I can't control the weather, economy and apparently election outcomes (shade) but what I can control are my words, my attitude, my thoughts and my actions. More and more... having kids has taught me that someone is always watching and listening to how I act and respond to things. The best part of being a Christian is knowing that I can eat a great meal and never worry about the bill. As I type this... even I am saying... yeah right but going forward I hope to quiet that negative voice and listen just a bit closer to the one that says... Fix it Jesus and just Release.

As we close out the year and start to look back at all of the things that we have lost, things that didn't go as planned or could have been better... stop and say (in your Whitley Gilbert voice) Relax, Relate, Release... it will make everything just a little bit better.